I really enjoyed this TED Talk about sex needing a new metaphor, something besides baseball, because as Al Vernacchio points-out, the baseball metaphor is heterosexist, competitive, goal-directed and rule-bound. So he suggests something else, like pizza. Why pizza? Because it’s something everyone can enjoy, and pizza comes in millions of combinations and flavors and everyone who eats it is satisfied and there is no winner and loser when sharing a pizza. Watch the talk and enjoy. Yum.

Here is a short clip that was deleted from the one hour special on polyamory done by Lisa Ling on Our America, a show on Oprah’s OWNTV. This is a poly triad raising an 11-year old daughter together. It’s a good look at how a poly family operates and one that I more closely identified with than the families in Showtime’s “Married and Dating”.

Deleted Scenes: Polyamorous Family Raising 11 Year-Old Girl. Regina discusses being a poly mom to her 11 year-old daughter Colleen, and shares the benefits of having multiple partners when it comes to parenting.

I’m going to add to the “Is being polyamorous a sexual identity or not?” debate. Lovers are gonna love and haters are gonna hate, so here we go.

My opinion: Being polyamorous is not a sexual identity. I think that what gender you are sexually attracted to is sexual identity (gay, straight, bi, queer, etc.). How many people you want to be having a sexual relationship with at any given time is a relationship type identity or a relationship choice. How someone identifies depends on the person because polyamorous can be something that you innately are or something you do.

For instance, I have never thought monogamously. Not for one moment in my post-puberty life. From the moment I started “noticing” girls I have never felt monogamous-minded. In high school I almost always had more than one girlfriend and they knew I had other girlfriends and sometimes they even knew each other, and in one case they were best friends.

After high school I tried to do the socially expected thing and get married and be monogamous. Sometimes I wasn’t so good at it, and when I was I was miserable, feeling like part of me was missing. I wasn’t being true to myself by being true to the path society expected of me.

So for me, being polyamorous is an identity. I am a straight male (sexual identity) who is innately polyamorous (lifestyle/relationship identity). I don’t “feel” monogamous, and I have never expected it from a partner unless it was agreed upon (such as in my first marriage). I didn’t have to bend my thinking to be polyamorous, it’s just who I am. So it is a type of identity and it’s a valid identity.

However, some think monogamously but try to be polyamorous for their partner or feel it’s how they want to live, even though being polyamorous isn’t a deep-down burning desire and need. They have to change their thinking to be polyamorous. These people “do” polyamory.

This is why I think that being polyamorous can be both an identity or something you do, it’s just not a sexual identity.